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Get a gift for a gamer or for yourself with Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals from all the manufacturers, publishers, and developers.

Consoles and computers

Accessories

Games

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You can be extra giving this holiday season when getting yourself a new mobile phone. Plus, Black Friday deals on lots of consumer electronics stuff.

Telus’ buy one, give one campaign

Giving Tuesday happens next week, but Telus has a unique take on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

From Friday to Monday, purchasing a mobile phone and associated plan will result in Telus providing a free phone and mobility plan to a Canadian youth who is leaving the foster care system.

It’s part of Telus’ Mobility for Good program.

Wearables

  • Galaxy Watch6 from Samsung is $100 off, starting at $450.
  • Pixel Watch 2 from Google is only $400, $80 off
  • Jabra’s got up to 50% off on earbuds of all types. The new Elite 8 Active are 25% off, the Elite 10 are 20% off, and the Evolve2 Buds are 30% off.

Mobile phones

  • Pixel 8 starts at $750, saving you $200
  • Galaxy S23 FE from Samsung is discounted $220 and starts at $650.

Tablets

  • Remarkable with a typewriter case for $887 or a standard, “book folio” case for $827. Both come with the Marker Plus stylus, which sells separately for $179
  • Galaxy Tab S9 lineup is up to $150 off.

Laptops

Speakers

  • Nearly the entire Sonos lineup is 20% off (the Move and Roam are 25% off), so you’re looking at $250 for the Era 100 base speaker and $879 for the Arc Soundbar. (Move is $374 and Roam is $171.)

Televisions

  • Neo QLED from Samsung is between $300 and $1,300 off depending on the screen size you’re looking for; they start at $1,300 for a 43-inch.

Home electronics

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Valve’s got a new Steam Deck portable computer, you can explore a strange planet in the Invincible, and the Game Award nominations are out.

Valve’s new Steam Deck is a big upgrade

Valve’s got a new Steam Deck, just in time for the holidays.

The Steam Deck OLED has, as the name suggests, an OLED screen, which makes the new handheld computer thinner, lighter, and extends the battery life by up to 50%.

The screen is HDR-enabled, too.

Most of the rest of the technical specs are the same as in the original Steam Deck but the OLED model has larger hard drive space and WiFi 6E for faster wireless connectivity.

With the new hardware, the OG models have been priced to sell.

Here’s the lineup (prices in Canadian dollars):

  • Steam Deck 64GB LCD: $439
  • Steam Deck 256GB LCD: $499
  • Steam Deck 512GB LCD: $559
  • Steam Deck 512GB OLED: $689
  • Steam Deck 1TB OLED: $819

In Canada and the U.S., there is a limited edition translucent Steam Deck OLED with a 1 TB hard drive for $859.

The new Steam Deck OLED is available to purchase on November 16 starting at 10:00 a.m. PT.

The Invincible delivers thought-provoking sci-fi adventure

Based on a novella by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, The Invincible is a compelling and mysterious adventure set on a fascinating planet.

You play as Yasna, an astrobiologist, seemingly the only person on planet Regis III and tasked with uncovering what happened with the other explorers who were on the planet before you.

There’s no combat here, just opportunities to explore and discover and consider. Your choices are logged and change the path of the story you reveal. One perk of the game is that your particular story is documented as a comic book, so you can look back at the entire narrative when you’re done.

And you can also go back and replay the game while making different decisions, and create an entirely different story.

Developed by Starward Industries and published by 11 bit studios, the Invincible is available now for PS5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S. Rated mature.

Alan Wake 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 each have 8 nominations for the Game Awards

Nominees for the 2023 Game Awards were revealed on Monday. Alan Wake 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 picked up eight nominations, including Game of the Year.

Other Game of the Year nominations went to Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Games developed by independent studios nominated for Best Indie Game are Cocoon, Dave the Diver, Dredge, Sea of Stars, and Viewfinder.

The general public is encouraged to vote for the games they would like to win.

Nominees are chosen by juries selected for their expertise who submit ballots with their top five choices, and winners are, according to the website, “determined by a blended vote between the voting jury (90%) and public fan voting (10%).”

The event will broadcast live on December 7 at 4:30 p.m. PT on all the channels you can imagine, including Discord, Twitch, YouTube, and others.

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Research by NordVPN supports what we’ve all known: privacy policies are too long and too difficult to understand.

According to the research, it would take someone more than 40 hours to read the policies of the 96 websites Canadians “typically visit in a month”.

An assessment of the policies using a common readability index – Flesch Reading Ease Score – determined that most are very difficult to read, requiring a university degree.

These policy documents are important, too, because they govern what a website can and can’t do (will and won’t do) with your information.

Given that most of us are unlikely to read privacy policies, especially those that are long and difficult to read, one suggestion by NordVPN is to search policies for what they call, “red flag keywords” like “‘sell’ and ‘sold,’ indicating that your data may be sold to third parties. Also look for words like ‘partners,’ ‘affiliates,’ and ‘third parties’ with whom your data might be shared or sold to. Lastly, look for words ‘may’ and ‘for example,’ because they might give away the website’s malicious intent regarding its users’ data (as in ‘might analyze your content, for example, your emails’).”

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